May 6, 2008

This morning we departed Chicago and headed out to the suburbs of the city to meet with Tealia Ellis Ritter. We arrived at Tealia’s beautiful home around 1PM and walked down to her equally beautiful studio in her backyard. Like all of the photographers we have visited so far, Tealia was really wonderful to speak with and our interview with her will be making it’s way to our website later on this summer.

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Ethan Jones, Tealia Ellis Ritter, myself.

We left Tealia’s around 3 or 4PM and drove to Milwaukee where we met up with Sonja Thomsen. I want to say how fortunate Ethan and I are to be meeting with such friendly, insightful, and all-around-amazing people, Sonja included.

Sonja, Ethan, and I piled into her maroon VW Jetta and down to her studio in a warehouse nearby. It was pretty sweet. One day I hope to have a space like Tealia and Sonja have. It seems welcoming to be able to divide home life and work life into two different spaces. Our interview with Sonja started off slightly awkward, mainly because Ethan and I were feeling a little sluggish, but ended on a hilarious note with us dancing around her studio. Sonja said that the only way we could video tape the interview was if we did a dance at the end, and, well, we did.

Sonja Thomsen in her studio.

After our interview, Sonja treated us (thank you) to dinner at Lou Lou’s Dinner (do I have the name right, Sonja?) and it hit the spot. Ethan and Sonja had pitas and I had a not-so-traditional steak and cheese sandwich. We all had sweet local beers. You may be thinking that a steak and cheese sandwich is a dangerous thing to be ordering in Milwaukee, and if by dangerous you mean dangerously delicious, you are 100% correct.

Side note: I should to start taking snaps of our food so you can experience some of the deliciousness.

That night we drove for awhile; maybe till 10PM or so. We stopped at a Best Western right around this time but the room was $80/night (too expensive for our month-long budget) and their WiFi was busted so we kept on truckin’.

Ten or twenty miles later we pulled off the interstate and into the Country Squire Inn parking lot. I have no idea what town or city this was in.

The main office was locked with a sign that said something to the extent of… “If you would like to rent a room, please go to our restaurant and bar next door and ask.”

We did just that. For $53 and some change we had a clean room, two full beds, and a warm shower. Plus, the woman at the bar that gave us our room key was friendly enough; always a plus when paying for a motel room inside of a bar; a first for both Ethan and I.

May 5, 2008

Last night we made our way into Warren Dune State Park around 10PM, set up shop at campsite #41, made a meal consisting of pasta elbows with Ragu for dinner and cinnamon apple sauce for dessert, said goodnight to the raccoons looking for scraps nearby, and crawled into our sleeping bags. The nighttime temps were mild; clear and perhaps high 40s or so.

The following morning we explored the beaches and dunes of Warren Dunes State. Both were equally beautiful. Although I have not ever been to Cancun, the Bahamas, or tropical places of that nature (minus Costa Rica and Panama), I believe it may be quite like being on the beaches of Warren Dunes State Park. The water was deep shades of blues and greens, and the surrounding area was peaceful and almost empty as we visited prior to the busy tourist summer season.

Warren Dunes State Park.

We departed Warren Dunes State Park and hit the interstate to Chicago, and made our way to downtown Chicago around 4PM where we visited the shiny Bean, a dope camera shop where Ethan purchased film, and a fountain with kids playing. It was here where I made my first bird-in-flight photograph of the trip.

Ethan and I at the Bean.

Spring at the fountain.

Seagull, building.

Around 7PM we caught up with where we would be sleeping at Mark and KC’s apartment, both college-friends of Ethan’s. We dropped our bags off and made our way over a deep-dish pizza place (whose name I am forgetting at the moment) where we met up with Sara, Mark’s girl and former RIT grad. One slide of pepperoni, a second of sausage and mushroom, and a Corona were everything we needed for a good-nights rest. Big thanks to Mark and KC for giving us a place to sleep.

May 5, 2008

“Nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people.”

Mark Twain

Ethan, Campsite #41, Mazda Protege

Wista, Dunes, Self

Dunes, Lake Michigan, Blue Sky

I am recording more video than I know what to do with and it’s being made with a Canon G9 and a Gorilla Pod (many thanks to two folks for making these two items a reality).

I am running into a problem, though. Many of the files are in excess of 2-4gb each.

I need a way to compress them before dropping them into iMovieHD because right now it simply takes more time than I have while on the road.

Any suggestions? I would like to get this content onto the blog but need a fix!

We came across this billboard during our first (but quick) traffic jam of the trip, specifically along I-94 West between Ann Arbor, Michigan and Sawyer, Michigan.

May 4, 2008

Yesterday we arrived in Athens, Ohio much later than our anticipated time of 3:30PM and instead around 6:30PM. Earlier in the day we drove through an absolute downpour for longer than we would have liked and it made for a difficult, tiresome drive where much time was not able to be made up.

The rain ceased towards the latter part of the afternoon. The clouds began to clear, giving way to rays of sunshine and feelings of warmth and elation. We snaked up, down, and around the mountainside towns outside of Athens where Matt has been photographing most recently.

Upon arriving in Athens we walked a short ways from the apartment that Matt, his wife Melissa, and their baby Madeline live-in and over to their college friends’ home and we realized that Athens was teeming with life. I particularly remember seeing a college-aged girl with dreadlocks that reached down to her bottom happily riding her bike in and out of rays of sunshine that streamed down through newly-blossomed trees that seemed to carefully rest like extended arms above our heads.

Without planning, Ethan and I had ironically arrived on Mom’s weekend. Daughter’s and son’s shared copious amounts of hot dogs, hamburgers, cookies, cakes, and alcohol, of course, with their mother’s. A great time seemed to be had by all with much laughter, indie music, a soccer ball, and a game of indoor twister. Some sort of high-five slap-tastic hand movement was also happening on the back deck. I would elaborate more but I am still slightly confused by what exactly it was.

Ethan and I met their welcoming friends, ate hamburgers and hot dogs, drank a couple of Corona’s, and then made our way back to Matt’s apartment to speak and learn about his photographs and he as a photographer.

During our conversation, Ethan and I remarked on how beautiful and idillic it was driving through the rural towns outside of Athens. Matt agree that this is the view experienced by many visitors to Athens but that so much more lay beneath the surface. The interview with Matt was everything we could have asked for and more (side note: content from all of our interviews will make it’s way to the website in either June or July).

I relate it much to how life in Maine is. Tourists view the coastal towns as beautiful, serene, and peaceful, and in the most honest there is no question that they are. But after spending close to two years in these coastal towns I have learned that there is much more beneath it all. It is perhaps much like an iceberg; a small portion is easily viewed rising through the water but a larger, deeper portion rests below.

Right now we are driving through Arlington, Ohio and Ethan says there are a lot of kids out and about. I agree. It’s a warm, pleasant day. We are listening to three mix cds courtesy of the talented Matt Eich. Brian Eno does what he does while we drive to Ann Arbor to see Colin Blakely.

…photography students from Ohio University, perhaps?

Ethan driving towards a sunset.

Sunroof, sunset.

EDIT: the content below is being added on May 9, 2008.  I am in the works of catching up on everything..

May 4, 2008

This afternoon we visited Colin Blakely at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan,  We had the pleasure of meeting not only Colin but also his welcoming wife, young children (one named Ethan, ironically), and their German Shepard-esque dog, Mesa.  We walked a short ways down to the park where Colin has been making his photographs and enjoyed learning about he and his photographs.

Now we are departing Ann Arbor, Michigan, and heading towards Warren Dunes State Park, which is on the eastern, lower part of Lake Michigan where we will sleep for one night.

Colin Blakely in the park he has been photographing.

May 3, 2008

It’s morning time again, shortly after 10:30AM. We have departed Rochester and are cruising along I-90 heading West to see our first photographer, Matt Eich.

Last night we had the pleasure of catching up with old friends and our superb team: Suzy, our editorial director; Eric at Booksmart Studio, our publisher; Josh Gomby, our graphic designer. Videos will be coming soon from the opening of “Seventeen”, an exhibit of the artwork from the fourth year fine-art photography students at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Back to the present…

Cat Power’s sweet, weathered voice is playing through the speakers of Ethan’s yellow-jacket colored Mazda Protege. Right now the odometer reads 71,979 miles. By the end our trip it will have surpassed 82,000; an addition of over 10,000 miles in one month’s time.

The grass between the thruway is a heavily saturated green dotted with yellow buttercups and daffodils rising from the earth. Our breakfast has been a healthy one to fuel us for the road: three homemade chocolate chip cookies (thanks, Mom!) and water from our Nalgenes.

May 2, 2008

I am writing this while riding in the back seat of my parents Black Toyota 4Runner. It is morning time shortly after 9AM. My father is singing, “One day at a time.. one day at a time..” and my mother is talking about dribbling a basketball with the students she nurses for in the Syracuse City School District.

The weather is overcast; probably in the high-40s and the air is quite heavy with spring. My parents are enroute to dropping me off at Hannah’s apartment where Ethan is most likely up and rumaging about.

Rochester, here we come.

May 1, 2008

“If you’re going to ride my ass at least pull my hair”

That was a bumper sticker seen on the rear of a vintage Jeep while driving through Massachusetts.  The 8 hour drive from Maine to Syracuse was smooth, quick, and easy.  I met my parents on the New York State Thruway, specifically Exit 36, to have dinner and a night with them at the home I grew up in and they continue to live in.  It’s a quaint suburban home; creamy white siding, sections of white picik fence, rich green grass from spring’s rain.  Ethan continued on to Rochester to see his friends and his lady, Hannah.